Rev. Samuel H. Raudebaugh.
There are many interesting data to be
noted in reviewing the career of this venerable and revered citizen,
who is living virtually retired in the Village of Dacoma, Woods
County, after having served all with consecrated zeal and devotion
for nearly half a century as a clergyman of the United Brethren
Church. He retired from the active work of the ministry in December,
1914, after having been a member of the Oklahoma conference of the
denomination for the year that marked the admission of the state to
the Union. His life has been one of signal consecration to the
service of the Divine Master and to the aiding and uplifting of his
fellow men, the while his fine intellectual powers and broad and
varied experience have made him a potent force in connection with
practical affairs. He is a native of the old Buckeye State and a
scion of one of its sterling pioneer families, and he represented
that state as a valiant soldier of the Union during the Civil war, in
which two of his younger brothers likewise took part. In the "piping
times of peace" Mr. Raudebaugh has ever manifested the same
intrinsic spirit of loyalty :ind patriotism that prompted him thus to
go forth in defense of the national integrity, and he has proved
true to duty in all the relations of a significantly active and
useful career.

Rev. Samuel H.
Raudebaugh was born on a farm near Lancaster, the judicial center of
Fairfield County, Ohio, and the date of his nativity was September
29, 1842. He is a son of Rev. Abraham and Susana (Simons) Raudebaugh,
both likewise natives of Ohio and representatives of worthy pioneer
families of that commonwealth. Rev. Abraham Raudebaugh was born on
the 19th of September, 1820, and was reared and educated in his
native state, where he became a prosperous farmer and an able and
honored local minister of the United Brethren Church, his work in the
ministry having been initiated in 1854 and having terminated with his
death, which occurred at Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio, in August,
1859. His marriage to Miss Susana Simons was solemnized in 1841, his
wife, who was born in the year 1822,
having survived him by more than a score of years and having passed
the closing period of her life at Lawrence, Kansas, where she was
summoned to the life eternal on the 18th of January, 1882, secure in
the reverent affection of all who had come within the sphere of her
gentle and gracious influence. Of the ten children, Rev. Samuel H.,
of this review, is the first born, and concerning the other children
brief record is here given in respective order of their birth: Susan
died in infancy; Peter O., who is a resident of Herington, Dickinson
County, Kansas, where he established his residence in 1866, was a
gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as a member of Company
K, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Perry F., who now maintains
his home in the City of Seattle, Washington, served in the Civil war
as a member of the One Hundred and Ninety-sixth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry; Katherine resides in Huron County, Ohio, and .lane is the
wife of Frank Wilson of that county; the next two children were twin
daughters who died in infancy; Miss Rosa Ann Rebecca resides at
Herington, Kansas; and Abraham W. died at the age of ten years.

Rev. Samuel H.
Raudebaugh is indebted to the schools of Fairfield and Hancock
Counties, Ohio, for his early educational discipline, which was
supplemented by an effective course in a well ordered normal school
in Allen County, that state. As a young man he put his scholastic
attainments to practical test and utilization and was for several years a
successful and popular teacher in the schools of Putnam County, Ohio.

When the Civil war
was precipitated on a divided nation Mr. Raudebaugh waited only for
consistent opportunity to tender his aid in defense of the Union, and
his military career, marked by many thrilling incidents, shall ever
redound to the honor of his name. On the 5th of December, 1862, he
enlisted as a private in Company K, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry, his brother, Peter O., having become a member of the same
company. Mr. Raudebaugh enlisted as a recruit to this regiment, which
was at the time attached to the Army of the Cumberland, under Gen. O.
O. Howard. Mr. Raudebaugh lived up to the full tension of the great
internecine conflict and participated with his command in sixteen
important battles, besides many skirmishes and other minor
engagements. He took part in and was captured at the battle of
Stone’s River, but by feigning death he contrived to make good his
escape. He was in the battle of Missionary Ridge and in all the
incidental engagements of the Atlanta campaign, from that of Rocky
Face Ridge, on the 8th of May, 1864, to the battles of Atlanta and
Jonesboro, terminating the summer’s campaign, on September 4th of
that year. At the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864,
he was captured by the enemy, and for four months and one day he was
confined in the odious Andersonville Prison, from which he was
released on the 31st of March, 1865. With other comrades who had
there been confined he then proceeded to the City of Vicksburg, and
with many other Union soldiers boarded the ill-fated Mississippi
River packet-steamer Sultana, retained as a transport vessel in the
Federal service, for the purpose of making his way back to his home
state. On the 27th of April, 1865, as history records as one of the
most lamentable incidents of the Civil war, this steamer was
literally blown into fragments by the explosion of its boilers, the
result of the frightful disaster being
that 1,457 men, principally Union soldiers, lost their lives. Mr.
Raudebaugh was among the few survivors of this memorable disaster,
and though he had been fortunate in having escaped other than nominal
wounds in the many important battles in which he had taken part, he
received severe injuries in the wrecking of the Sultana, the
survivors of which great disaster do not exceed 100 in 1915. Mr.
Raudebaugh finally arrived at Camp Chase, at Columbus, Ohio, and
there he received his honorable discharge on the 20th of May, 1865.
His continued interest in his old comrades has been shown by his
active and appreciative affiliation with the Grand Army of the
Republic, in which he has served as chaplain and held other official
positions.

After the close of
the war Mr. Raudebaugh purchased a farm in Putnam County, Ohio, where
for two years he devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits and
to teaching in the district schools during the winter terms. In 1867,
after careful study and other earnest preparation, he entered the
ministry of the United Brethren Church, of which he had become a
member when a mere boy. He pursued a thorough course of
ecclesiastical and philosophical reading under the auspices of the
Sandusky Conference of the United Brethren Church and was then
formally ordained a clergyman of this church. He continued his
ministerial services in the Sandusky Conference of Ohio, held divers
important pastoral charges and was given distinguished conference
preferments, and labored with all of zeal and ability in his native
state until he was transferred to the conference of the newly
organized State of Oklahoma, in 1907. During his first year of
service in this new field of labor he held a pastoral charge at Alva,
Woods County, and for three years thereafter he had pastoral charge
of the United Brethren
congregation at Dacoma. He resigned his active pastorate in December,
1914, and is now living virtually retired in his pleasant home in
Dacoma, though he is still retained on the supernumerary ministerial
list of his church and holds himself ready to respond to all calls
made upon him for further service. He is well known in Woods County
and commands the highest place in popular confidence and esteem. In
addition to being a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic he is
affiliated also with the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows. Mr. Raudebaugh entered a soldier’s claim to a tract
of land in Oklahoma prior to the admission of the state to the Union,
and he perfected his title to this property in 1891.

Mr. Raudebaugh has
been thrice wedded. On the 2d of October, 1862, he married Miss Sarah
E. Godfrey, who was born November 29, 1842, and whose death occurred
February 14, 1870. Of this union were born four children: Ruth Jane
was born November 1, 1866, and died May 4, 1887; Mary Ann was born
November 22, 1865, and died on the 4th of the following month; Laura
E. was born February 14, 1869, and died on the 14th of the following
month; John Henry was born February 5, 1870, and now resides in the
City of Toledo, Ohio.

On the 26th of May,
1870, Mr. Raudebaugh wedded Mrs. Caroline W. Baker, who was born July
22, 1834, and who passed to eternal rest on the 4th of February,
1873, the one child of this union being Grace Maria, who was born
November 27, 1872, and who is the wife of Elijah Quisno, of Port
Clinton, Ohio.

On the 17th of
August, 1873, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Raudebaugh to Mrs.
Amelia A. Mugg, widow of Wheeler Mugg. Mrs. Raudebaugh has one
daughter by her first marriage–Grace B., who was born May 11, 1869,
and who is now the wife of Adam Vollmer, a representative farmer of
Woods County, Oklahoma, their two children being Hallie L. and Graham
T.